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South Asia Investor Review is focused on reporting, analyzing and discussing the economy and the financial markets of countries in South Asia, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. For investors looking to invest in emerging markets beyond BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), this blog is designed to help international investors looking to learn about investing in South Asia with focus on Pakistan. Riaz has another blog called Haq's Musings at http://www.riazhaq.com

China Emerges as the Top Destination For Pakistanis Studying Abroad

China has emerged as the top destination for Pakistani students studying abroad with 19,000 of them in China this year. This figure is more than 3 times the 6,141 Pakistani students currently enrolled in the US universities, according to data available from reliable sources.

Foreign Students in China:

China is hosting over 440,000 foreign students in 2017, up 35% from 2012. No other Asian country has as many foreign students as China does today, according to Shanghiist.

The countries sending the largest number of students to China are South Korea, the United States and Thailand, followed by Pakistan, India, Russia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Japan and Vietnam, according to data from China's Ministry of Education as reported by Chinese media.

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC):

The number of students from countries involved in China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, also known as The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road that includes China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), has significantly increased. In 2016, students from the 64 countries in the initiative saw 200,000 students coming to China to study, representing an increase of 13.6% compared with one year before.

Even after the dramatic increase of Pakistani students going to China, the United Kingdom still remains the top source of international education for Pakistanis. 46,640 students, the largest number of Pakistani students receiving international education anywhere, are doing so at Pakistani universities in joint degree programs established with British universities, according to UK Council for International Student Affairs.

The number of students enrolled in British-Pakistani joint degree programs in Pakistan (46,640) makes it the fourth largest effort behind Malaysia (78,850), China (64,560) and Singapore (49,970).

China's Soft Power:

China is now taking a page from the successful playbook of the Americans and the British to project their soft power through education. The Chinese government is making significant investment in scholarships and facilities to foster a greater understanding of the Chinese culture and language globally, and expand Beijing's soft power.

Summary:

China has emerged as the top destination for Pakistani students studying abroad with 19,000 of them in China this year. This figure is more than 3 times the 6,141 Pakistani students currently enrolled in the US universities. Chinese government is investing in scholarships and facilities to entice foreign students, particularly those from countries such as Pakistan that are part of China's Silk Road initiative, in an effort to project its soft power.

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One of India’s most important economists on globalisation and how he expects the country to catch up ‘with China in 20 or 30 years’

Arvind Subramanian owes both his job and his plush New Delhi residence to the same man: India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, who hired him as the government’s chief economic adviser in 2014. Subramanian hurriedly departed from his role at a US think-tank and moved back home to work in the finance department, only to find himself lodged temporarily in a humdrum guest house. “The finance minister was very sweet,” he says. “He rang the housing minister, and said, ‘I want him to get a very nice house.’ ”

Subramanian now lives in New Moti Bagh: a leafy estate in the heart of the capital, where grace-and-favour bungalows are granted only to elite civil servants, making it arguably the most powerful neighbourhood in India. “This place has been called the new Forbidden City,” he says, in reference to the walled imperial palace in Beijing, the heart of Chinese government for five centuries. India’s equivalent is less forbidding: a compound of 116 white bungalows and 10 apartment blocks nestled amid pleasant parks, through which the resident officials, judges and military top brass go for their morning walks.

Subramanian is sitting in the spacious living room of his own six-bedroom, two-storey home, dressed in a white linen shirt, black jeans and brown leather loafers. At 57, he looks trim and speaks with rapid, Tigger-ish energy. Outside, the mid-afternoon sunshine is falling on his front garden, whose verges are filled with lush green shrubs.

The house resembles a colonial-era bungalow, with a roof terrace on the second floor and two sets of servants’ quarters at the rear. It is actually newer than it looks, he says: the entire area was rebuilt about a decade ago, hence the “new” in New Moti Bagh. Though spartan when he arrived — “there was maybe a wooden bed, a cabinet, but basically nothing else” — the interior is now pleasantly decorated with furniture he and his wife Parul shipped back from Washington DC, including a series of Impressionist-style paintings by his elderly father, a retired civil servant.

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Subramanian admits he has learnt to watch his step on delicate topics, in public at least, giving an example of debates about protecting cows, which some conservative Hindus consider sacred. “I was asked for my views on the beef ban in Mumbai and said jokingly that if I speak on this I’ll probably lose my job — and that went on the front page of The Indian Express,” he recalls. “In that case I was told to be a bit more careful.”

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Modi’s support for globalisation is deeper than most people realise, he adds, a flip side of the fact that India is now a much more open economy than commonly acknowledged. The country’s future growth is not without challenges, however. “We have this whole ambivalence about the private sector which we’ve never really overcome,” he says. Yet he remains bullish, claiming that he expects India to catch up with China “within the next 20 or 30 years or so”.

This will happen even as globalisation is set to slow down somewhat, he argues, albeit only compared with the unusually rapid growth in trade seen during the 2000s. “‘Hyper-globalisation is dead, long live globalisation,’ is how I like to put it,” he says. “If you look crudely at the postwar period, 80 per cent of globalisation is driven by technology, 20 per cent by policy. And that 80 per cent, you can’t stop.”

ISLAMABAD: In a major development that may attract $50 billion Chinese investment to Pakistan, Islamabad is expected to sign an MoU with Beijing on Saturday (today) for financing and developing the North Indus River Cascade which has the potential to generate 40,000MW hydro electricity.

The $50 billion investment comes on top of the $46 billion investment being provided by the Chinese government and Chinese banks for financing power and road infrastructure projects in Pakistan under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

With the signing of the MoU – which will be witnessed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who is on an official visit to China – Beijing will emerge as the biggest financier of infrastructure projects in Pakistan.

According to the studies conducted by the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda), Pakistan has an identified potential of producing up to 60,000MW of hydroelectric power.

Some 40,000MW of this potential power is located in the region called the Indus River Cascade, which begins from Skardu in Gilgit-Baltistan and runs through Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa as far as Tarbela, the site of Pakistan’s biggest dam in.

The Indus River Cascade includes Diamer-Bhasha Dam project for which Pakistan needs $15 billion financing. Other multilateral donors were not willing to invest on this project but now China has come up to finance this mega project.

Sources said the Chinese side conducted survey and studies on the North Indus Cascade including the sites of Pattan, Thacoat, Bunji, Dasau and Diamer in February 2017.

The Chinese side in their last high-level meeting agreed to convert the survey and initial study to an MoU whereby the Chinese will conduct a detailed study spanning over a period of three months on a developing roadmap for financing that will lead to initiation and completion of these mega projects.

Sources said this will be Pakistan’s first-ever private sector investment in mega projects in hydel resources as until now only Wapda led such projects. The most important development could be the Chinese undertaking of these projects as it has a vast experience for building such huge dams.

According to the sources, the CPEC and the North Indus River Cascade can be the biggest-ever Chinese investment in Pakistan.

In 2015, the owner of the world’s largest hydroelectric dam, China Three Gorges (CTG) Corporation, had expressed willingness to participate in a financing consortium to fund up to $50 billion of hydroelectric power projects in Pakistan.

During the last two years, I have travelled to Austria, Italy and France to explore the possibility of establishing top class engineering and technology universities in Pakistan. These journeys were to convince the leading varsities in these countries to form consortia of their best universities which could then set up top class educational institutions in Pakistan.

We spend over Rs100 billion every year to send our children abroad for good foreign education. Why can’t all this money be saved if we can educate our children at foreign universities in our own country? After all schoolchildren prepare for and take their O level and A level examinations from the University of Cambridge without physically travelling to the varsity in the UK. The same can be done at the university level.

An important step to strengthen engineering education and research in Pakistan was taken in 2004 when I was chairman of the Higher Education Commission. It was decided to establish a network of several world class foreign engineering universities in Pakistan. The model chosen was visionary and unique. It involved partnerships with consortia of top universities (rather than with any single foreign university) so that good quality foreign faculty could become available in sufficient numbers in Pakistan......... On May 19, 2008, just three months after ECNEC had granted approval to the projects, the new government abandoned the programme completely. --------------

I did not give up. In 2015, I approached Imran Khan with the idea and he immediately agreed to set up an Austrian university in Haripur and Hazara. The university is being funded by KP government and four of the best universities of Applied Science and Technology (‘Fachhochschule’) have agreed to form a consortium and give their degrees in Pakistan.

After that, I approached CM Shahbaz Sharif and he too agreed to set up an engineering university in the Lahore Knowledge Park. A consortium of the top Italian engineering universities has been formed and classes are expected to start in 2018 provided that a dynamic CEO can be appointed without wasting more time in the Lahore Knowledge Park. If this does not happen in a timely manner, the programmes will need to be postponed till 2019.

I have also approached the chief minister of Sindh who has a distinguished engineering background – having been trained in Stanford – but his decision to set up a foreign engineering university in his province is still awaited. Discussions with French, Chinese and Swedish institutions for the establishment of similar foreign engineering universities in other major cities of Pakistan are also under way.

These universities will focus on the following fields: industrial process engineering, energy, new materials, agricultural engineering/biotechnology, material sciences/nanotechnology, artificial intelligence/ robotics, big date, genomics and other fast emerging areas. There are opportunities opening up in many fields. For instance, biotechnology is changing the face of agriculture and medicine these days. Nobel Laureate Arthur Kornberg had once stated: “In view of the current power of biotechnology and its even brighter future, there is no question that the less developed countries must now position and strengthen their status in biotechnology...” .

VANG VIENG, Laos — Along the jungle-covered mountains of Laos, squads of Chinese engineers are drilling hundreds of tunnels and bridges to support a 260-mile railway, a $6 billion project that will eventually connect eight Asian countries.

Chinese money is building power plants in Pakistan to address chronic electricity shortages, part of an expected $46 billion worth of investment.

Chinese planners are mapping out train lines from Budapest to Belgrade, Serbia, providing another artery for Chinese goods flowing into Europe through a Chinese-owned port in Greece.

The massive infrastructure projects, along with hundreds of others across Asia, Africa and Europe, form the backbone of China’s ambitious economic and geopolitical agenda. President Xi Jinping of China is literally and figuratively forging ties, creating new markets for the country’s construction companies and exporting its model of state-led development in a quest to create deep economic connections and strong diplomatic relationships.

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China is moving so fast and thinking so big that it is willing to make short-term missteps for what it calculates to be long-term gains. Even financially dubious projects in corruption-ridden countries like Pakistan and Kenya make sense for military and diplomatic reasons.

The United States and many of its major European and Asian allies have taken a cautious approach to the project, leery of bending to China’s strategic goals. Some, like Australia, have rebuffed Beijing’s requests to sign up for the plan. Despite projects on its turf, India is uneasy because Chinese-built roads will run through disputed territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

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The power plants in Pakistan, as well as upgrades to a major highway and a $1 billion port expansion, are a political bulwark. By prompting growth in Pakistan, China wants to blunt the spread of Pakistan’s terrorists across the border into the Xinjiang region, where a restive Muslim population of Uighurs resides. It has military benefits, providing China’s navy future access to a remote port at Gwadar managed by a state-backed Chinese company with a 40-year contract.

Many countries in the program have serious needs. The Asian Development Bank estimated that emerging Asian economies need $1.7 trillion per year in infrastructure to maintain growth, tackle poverty and respond to climate change.

Debunking The Myth of #China Colonizing #Pakistan. #CPEC #OBOR #India http://www.valuewalk.com/2017/05/cpec-helps-china-colonize-pakistan/ … via @ValueWalk After DAWN published the exclusive CPEC master plan revealing China’s seemingly apparent plans to colonize Pakistan and turn it into its own economic colony, the Indian media erupted with amusing reports. Media outlets claimed that Beijing is taking away the independence that the Pakistanis regained from the British Empire with their blood and sweat nearly 70 years ago. But the idea of China colonizing Pakistan and establishing a comprehensive, nationwide control – economic, governmental and military – over Islamabad should not be so amusing to Indians. If it really happens, they would have to worry about the Chinese growing regional might not only on their country’s northern and eastern borders but also the western one.

DAWN released the exclusive CPEC master plan, which has even made some Pakistanis explode with outrage over the alleged colonial appetite of the Chinese during the first One Belt, One Road summit, which hosted government officials from 57 countries earlier this week. While the master plan does offer a gloomy outlook for the Pakistanis, who are no strangers to struggling with colonialism from foreign powers, let’s not forget that every coin has two sides.Let’s flip the coin for a second and take a look at the not-so-gloomy outlook for the Pakistani economy and the Pakistani people in general as a result of the implementation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The project is expected to create 2 million direct and indirect jobs in Pakistan alone and boost the country’s GDP growth rate to 7.5%, according to a report by U.S.-based consulting firm Deloitte and Touche.

CPEC improves livelihood of people in Pakistan

Like every development project between two nations, CPEC offers both benefits and negative impacts.

For example, the CPEC master plan cited by DAWN reveals China’s plans to take over “thousands of acres” of agricultural land in Pakistan for “demonstration projects.” But let’s not forget that those very infrastructure, roads and highways developed by CPEC create unprecedented opportunities for poor Pakistani regions which have been surviving below the poverty line for decades.

And while Pakistani governments both past and present have struggled to help those poor regions break free, the foreign investment that comes with CPEC could make a significant difference for the poor living nearby and inside the regions connected to the corridor. It’s not only the estimations that CPEC will create 2 million employment opportunities for the Pakistanis that improve the livelihood of locals, but also the fact that the corridor connects hinterlands with coasts, allowing big businesses to move to neglected regions.

To quote the DAWN report citing the CPEC master plan, China is set to create a “full system” of monitoring and surveillance for major Pakistani cities from Peshawar to Karachi and is even set to spread Chinese propaganda through the country’s TV, delivering it through fiber optic cables. While China’s vast investments into CPEC open the door for the Chinese to create monitoring and surveillance systems in Pakistan, it’s worth pointing out that the infrastructure projects spurred by the Chinese investment are improving the livelihood of the Pakistani people.

While probably no one can argue against the importance of high-quality hospitals and schools for every country and the livelihood of its people, China is opening medical centers, hospitals and educational institutions in Pakistan. Earlier this month, residents of Pakistan’s southwestern port city of Gwadar saw the opening of a hospital donated by China. Besides the hospital that allows for better emergency medical treatment to Pakistanis, China also built a new school in the port city in September 2016.

More medical and educational infrastructure projects spurred by China’s investments are set to open along CPEC in the coming months and years.

How bad is China’s “colonization” for Pakistan’s economy?

The DAWN report further notes that the CPEC master plan “envisages a deep and broad-based penetration of most sectors of Pakistan’s economy as well as its society by Chinese enterprises and culture.” While the actual “negative” impact of such “deep and broad-based penetration” is yet to be seen, China’s penetration of various sectors of the Pakistani economy, especially its energy sectors, does not sound like bad news.

Energy is actually the game-changing pillar of CPEC projects and China’s investments in Pakistan. In fact, 11 of the 19 early harvest projects under CPEC have a goal of ensuring an uninterrupted supply of electricity. While as much as $34 billion of the entire CPEC Chinese investment has been allocated to electricity production and distribution alone, the coal-fired plants, hydropower facilities, and wind and solar power farms that are being built in Pakistan are expected to prevent cuts of the electricity supply in the country, significantly improving the livelihood of the populace and helping make the Pakistani economy work more efficiently.

While the DAWN report suggests that Chinese enterprises “will play the lead role in each field” of the Pakistani economy, a “leading role” of the world’s second biggest economy in a neighboring state that is tightly connected to it already cannot be a negative thing. CPEC connects Xinjiang to Gwadar and Karachi, with pathways of the projects running through the entire country, thus improving connectivity and creating new supply and logistic chains – things the past and present governments of Pakistan have struggled to do without foreign investments over decades.

So is CPEC a BAD THING for Pakistan?

The seemingly apparent colonization plans brewing in the minds of the Chinese leadership also include being respectful to the locals. The DAWN report says that Chinese enterprises would be advised to “respect the religions and customs of the local people, treat people as equals and live in harmony.”

Most Pakistanis have been living under the illusion that each and every citizen of their country would become wealthy and prosperous thanks to CPEC. But that’s not necessarily true, as the corridor only gives the means for Pakistani people and Pakistani businesses – both small and big – to benefit from the game-changing project and its vast economic opportunities.

China takes ‘project of the century’ to PakistanAs part of its ‘One Belt, One Road’ project Beijing is pumping $55bn into its neighbour amid doubts over who really benefits

https://www.ft.com/content/05979e18-2fe4-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a

The leak of China’s original proposals for the CPEC agreement in the Pakistan newspaper Dawn this week heightened fears. The terms prioritise the industrial ambitions of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a quasi-military organisation vital to Beijing’s oil and security policies which also dominates the agricultural economy of the frontier region of Xinjiang.

Comparing it with the trading organisation that paved the way for British rule in India, the head of a large investment company in Pakistan says: “We have to be careful if we don’t want this to turn into a repeat of the East India Company. If we squander it, it will.”

China wants to complete four main tasks via CPEC: expand the Gwadar port on Pakistan’s south coast, which it financed, built and owns, build a fleet of power plants, construct road and rail links and set up special economic zones where companies can enjoy tax breaks and other business incentives.

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In building infrastructure, Beijing is doing for Pakistan what Islamabad has been unable to do for itself, especially as far as power generation is concerned. Peak electricity demand in Pakistan is 6 gigawatts greater than it can generate — equivalent to about 12 medium-sized coal power plants. Blackouts in many parts of the country last for several hours a day.

To meet this shortfall China is expected to spend more than $35bn — about two-thirds of the entire CPEC budget — building or helping to construct 21 power plants, which will be mainly fuelled by coal. The combined 16GW of capacity that they could provide would repair Pakistan’s supply gap twice over.

The building work associated with CPEC has already boosted heavy industry in the country. Arif Habib, one of the country’s biggest business conglomerates, says it is trebling its cement production in anticipation of CPEC.

“The risk is that down the line China will call the shots and that we will pay the price later,” says Syed Murad Ali Shah, the chief minister of Sindh, the province in which Karachi is located. “It is up to us.”

The Chinese plan, revealed by Dawn newspaper to have been delivered in December 2015, has only added to those concerns. It talks about thousands of acres of agricultural land leased out to Chinese enterprises to develop seed varieties and irrigation technology. It would install a full system of monitoring and surveillance in cities from Peshawar to Karachi, with 24-hour video recordings on roads. It would build a national network of fibre-optic cables to boost internet access.

Key to this is the XPCC. Under the plan the Han Chinese economic and paramilitary organisation is mandated to invest in Pakistan as a springboard for economic development around Kashgar, the heartland of 11m Turkic-speaking Muslims known as Uighurs.

Ministers in Islamabad say the document contains proposals originally drawn up by Beijing, but will not say how far the draft agreements, which are still being negotiated, differ from it.

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Whatever the concerns in Pakistan that Islamabad is ceding too much power to China, many in the business and political communities argue that the benefits from the infrastructure projects are well worth it.

“Pakistan requires money and money has no colour,” Kimihide Ando, head of Mitsubishi Corp in Pakistan, says.

Others argue that, following the problems with the free-trade agreement, Pakistan’s ministers will be more savvy this time. “The Chinese have taken us for a ride [before] but we have let them,” says Ehsan Malik, chief executive of the Pakistan Business Council. “Given we have made huge mistakes before, hopefully we will learn this time.”

Given the profoundly anti-science attitude of our (Indian) government leaders, things are not likely to change in a hurry.

In contrast, US’s National Science Foundation and National Science Board have recently released their biennial science and engineering indicators which provide detailed figures on research and development (R&D), innovation and engineers. But its true message is in a different direction, “China has become,” concludes Robert J. Samuelson in a column, “or is in the verge of becoming – a scientific and technical superpower. This is not entirely unexpected given the size of the Chinese economy and its massive investments in R&D, even so, he says, “the actual numbers are breathtaking”.

China is the 2nd largest spender in R&D after the US, accounting for 21% of the world total which is $2 trillion. It has been going up 18% a year, as compared to 4% in the US. An OECD report says that China could overtake the US in R&D spending by 2020.China has overtaken the US in terms of total number of science publications. Technical papers have increased dramatically, even if their impact, as judged by citation indices, may not be that high.China has increased its technical workforce five times since 2000 to 1.65 million. It also has more B.Sc. degrees in science than any other country and the numbers are growing.The US continues to produce more PhDs and attract more foreign students. But new international enrollment at US colleges was down for the first time in the decade in 2017. The Trump administration’s anti-immigration rhetoric and actions are scaring away students.China has begun shifting from being an assembler of high-tech components, to a maker of super computers and aircraft and given the pattern of its investments in R&D and technology development, it is focusing on becoming the world leader in artificial intelligence (AI), quantum communications, quantum computing, biotechnology and electrical vehicles.As of now, the US still continues to lead in terms of the number of patents and the revenue they generate.China has also become a more attractive destination for foreign students and is now occupying the third slot after the US and the UK. This year, it is likely to gain the second spot.

China now has a serious programme to attract its own researchers back to the country. The thousand talents plan targets scientists below the age of 40 who have PhDs from prestigious foreign universities. The government offers 500,000 RMB ($80,000) lumpsum to everyone enrolled in the programme and promises research grants ranging from one to three million RMB ($150,000-$300,000). The funding for the programme is growing and in 2011, China awarded 143 scientists out of the 1,100 who applied, and in 2016, 590 from 3,048 applicants.

Individual Chinese universities are offering several times that sum. One specialist in advanced batteries from an MIT post-doctoral programme was offered a salary of $65,000, $900,000 as research grant and $250,000 to buy a house.

The report also flagged the serious deficiencies in US higher secondary education where in 2015, average maths scores for the 4th, 8th and 12th graders dropped for the first time. In the field of R&D and patents and revenue accruing from them, the US remains ahead, but the recent anti-immigration trends pose a serious long-term risk to the American supremacy because in essence, the US has been the best in harvesting talent from across the world.

Pakistan-China Institute launched Chinese language classes here on Monday, in a move to provide opportunities to businessmen and other professionals who are interested in doing business in China.

Speaking at the event, Pakistani Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani said he is happy about the commencement of the Chinese language classes by the important think tank in Pakistan, adding that the Pakistan-China friendship has been mutually beneficial for the two countries in strategic and economic terms.

Mushahid Hussain, head of the Pakisan-China Institute, said it is important to enhance people-to-people contact between the two countries.

Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing said language is the vehicle of basic understanding, and that the commencement of Chinese language classes will bring closer cooperation between Pakistan and China, adding that by overcoming the language barrier, both peoples will better understand each other's culture.

The Chinese language classes started eight years ago in Pakistan schools, and the newly launched one is the second phase of such classes for businessmen, academics, and intellectuals.

Zhang Yang, a businessman from Chongqing in southwest China, is searching online forums for fellow stout-hearted entrepreneurs willing to cast aside security concerns and join him on a scouting mission to Pakistan.Zhang, 48, is one of a growing number of Chinese pioneers sensing an opportunity across the Himalayas in Pakistan, where Beijing has pledged to spend $57 billion on infrastructure projects as part of its “Belt and Road” initiative.

Numbering in the thousands, this second wave of Chinese arrivals are following in the wake of workers on Belt and Road projects. Some are opening restaurants and language schools, while others are working out what products they could sell to a market of 208 million people, or what goods they could make cheaply in Pakistan to sell around the world.

“A lot of industries are already saturated in China,” said Zhang, who has worked in property, electrical appliances and household goods in China and says he wants to explore the potential for setting up factories or importing Chinese goods.

“Pakistan’s development is behind China, so it will hold better opportunities compared to home.”

But the new arrivals face dangers, creating a headache for Pakistani security officials.

Islamic State’s killing of two Chinese nationals in the restive Baluchistan province in June highlighted the risks posed by Islamist militants, who may see them as soft targets in their war with the state.

Beijing has also long fretted about hardened Pakistani Islamist fighters linking up with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Uigher militant group Beijing accuses of seeking to split off its western region of Xinjiang, Pakistani officials say.

Islamabad does not release immigration data but a source in the foreign ministry said about 71,000 Chinese nationals visited in 2016. A senior immigration official added 27,596 visa extensions were granted to Chinese that year, a 41 percent increase on 2015, suggesting more are staying in the country for longer.

For Pakistan, the stakes in keeping all those Chinese nationals safe are high.

Beijing’s infrastructure splurge has helped revive Pakistan’s sputtering economy, and deepening ties between the two nations have turned Pakistan into a key cog in China’s grand plan to build a modern-day “Silk Road” of land and sea trade routes linking Asia with Europe and Africa.

While the first phase of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), as the Pakistan leg of this new Silk Road is called, concentrated on infrastructure projects, the second part will focus on setting up special economic zones and integrating Chinese firms into the local economy to help Pakistan develop its industries ranging from mining to agriculture.

China has also surged to become by far the biggest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) for Pakistan, topping $1 billion in 2016/17, and is betting on its neighbor at a time when many Western companies are still put off by security concerns and corruption.

“Pakistan really needs foreign investment and we are not going to miss out on this because of some idiots with a gun,” said Miftah Ismail, a special adviser to Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. “We won’t let them mess with the Chinese.”

ISLAMABAD, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Rubab Batool, a student from an underdeveloped village of Nawab Shah district in Pakistan's southern Sindh Province, recently left for China to pursue a master's degree of management sciences.

Talking to Xinhua upon her departure, Batool said that she chose China for higher studies because the launch of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has opened up a huge demand for Pakistani graduates from Chinese universities.

Batool is only one of 22,000 Pakistani students who have chosen China for their higher education. In 2017 alone, about 2,500 new students were enrolled in China to pursue their degrees in various fields, according to a recent statistics released by the Pakistani embassy in China.

Muhammad Shaheen, Batool's father said that he belongs to a conservative family and many of his relatives stopped him from sending his daughter to a foreign country for education, but he has faith in Batool and the Chinese education system.

"I am sure she will achieve her dreams by acquiring quality education from China," Shaheen said.

Last month, the first batch of Pakistani students who were enrolled in a two-year program of Chinese language learning program at Beijing Language and Culture University returned home after successfully completing their course.

The students, who left for China in 2016, said that they not only learnt the Chinese language but also got a clearer idea of the Chinese culture and the people.

An official with the country's Higher Education Commission said that they provide merit-based doctorate scholarships annually to brilliant students to five top-rated Chinese universities.

"The students showed great interest in studying in China as Chinese universities are among the best universities of the world so students from different faculties including science and technology and arts chose China for pursuing their degrees," the official said.

According to latest statistics of Pakistani embassy in Beijing, currently, 2,700 Pakistani students are pursuing masters and doctorate degrees in top Chinese universities on fully funded scholarships sponsored by the Chinese Government.

Kalsoom Sumra, a doctorate degree holder in policy sciences from Peking University, is working as an associate professor in Pakistan's top-ranked university Comsats University of Information Technology in Islamabad.

Sumra told Xinhua that as a Pakistani, it was a good experience for her to know the culture of China and the deep ties of Pakistan with China.

She said that China is becoming a destination for students from Pakistan and other Asian countries as the country is competing with higher education in developed countries and Chinese higher education institutes have introduced advanced teaching resources.

Usman Ali, a 28-year-old Pakistani who got a Bachelors degree in medical sciences from China, is now serving at a well reputed government hospital in Pakistan. He said Chinese universities provide medical studies to Pakistani students at affordable rates.

In Pakistan, private medical colleges charge 0.6 to 1 million rupees (about 6,000 to 10,000 U.S. dollars) from a student a year, whereas Chinese universities provide much better education at a cost as low as 3,000 dollars a year.

"I have had a great learning experience from my practical work in Chinese hospitals. Pakistan has a long way to go to get to the level of China in health sector and I hope that I and other graduates from China will use our experience to improve the situation of medical health care in Pakistan."

Last year wasn’t a fluke. The US has lost its appeal to international students.

The US issued visas to less than 400,000 international students in fiscal year 2017. That’s a 17% decline from 2016, and a 40% drop from 2015.

The decline in student visas issued makes it seem like there’s a dramatic decline in international students in the US. That’s a bit misleading. A US policy change in 2014 allowed Chinese nationals to renew student visas once every five years instead of every year. The result has been fewer annual applications from Chinese students, who make up about a third of the foreign-student population in the US.

Enrollment figures give a clearer picture than do numbers of student visas issued—but the decline is there, too. According to a survey conducted by the Institute of International Education, enrollment of first-time international students fell an average of 7% in fall 2017 from a year ago across 522 US institutions.

One contributing factor to the decline is the drop in Saudi Arabian students. The Saudi government cut funding for international-education scholarships in 2016 after a year of low oil prices, resulting in a 14% drop in the number of incoming students from the prior year. Saudi nationals were the fourth-largest group of foreign students in the US in 2017.

Another factor: US universities are getting more expensive. Facing deep state budget cuts and legislative protection for local students, some major public universities increased tuition for international students to raise revenue.

The current US political climate makes the situation even worse. A number of policies instituted by the Trump Administration, ostensibly aimed at protecting Americans, have barred international students from entering the country. A majority of US academic institutions cited visa issues as the top reason for enrolling fewer international students in fall 2017.

As of March 2018, there were 0.5% fewer F-1 and M-1 visa holders–a measure for the number of foreign students enrolled in academic and vocational programs–in the US than a year ago. Though slight, it’s the first decline since the 2008 recession.

The international demand for higher education hasn’t gone away. It moved elsewhere. Other English-speaking countries saw their numbers of international higher-ed students rise. More international students applied to universities in Canada, Ireland, Australia, and the UK—despite Brexit—in 2017 than in 2016. The US is the outlier.

52% of new Silicon Valley companies are founded by immigrant CEOs. Some of the most iconic American brands—Microsoft, Google, McDonald’s, PepsiCo, and U.S. Steel, for example—are today led by foreign-born CEOs. It all starts with foreign student enrollment in US universities. Trump is destroying America's future.

The CPEC Cultural Communication Centre (CCC) under its ‘Talent Corridor’ scheme will offer scholarships to 1,000 Pakistani students for a one-year vocational training starting from November this year in China.

“The students to be selected from across the country will be provided free tuition and dormitory during the training at different universities and institutes in China,” Echo Lee, Director General, CPEC CCC and CEO of St Xianglin Management and Consulting Company while talking to APP here on Sunday.

The CPEC CCC is located in China’s Suzhou Vocational University, which has the world-class facilities and able faculty and its functions include Sino-Pak students exchange, academic research and seminars, vocational education, organising Chinese culture experience camp and teachers exchange, she added.

Giving further details about scholarship scheme, she said it is a three level programme and the students will be taught outer space and high-speed train technology during the first level while in the middle level, they will be imparted education of hydro-power and solar energy engineering.

The students selected for the lowest level will get training for the driving of different machines and types of equipment including excavation machines and caterpillar etc.

Ms Echo Lee said this year, 1,000 students will be offered 20 majors from a high level to the lower level classes as compared to 100 scholarships in six majors last year.

While hoping for a positive response and cooperation from the Pakistani side, she said at present, the details are being discussed with the concerned officials in the Pakistan ministry of planning, development and reforms as well as the embassy of Pakistan in Beijing.

She informed the CPEC CCC is jointly working along with the Chinese education ministry which is affiliated with a number of vocational universities and institutes.

To a question, she claimed that vocational education in China is the highest level in the world even in some areas it is better than Germany and Japan.

The CEO said this cross-border education exchange programme is step one of the overall project and added in the next phases, equipment and teachers will be sent for vocational training of Pakistani students in Pakistan.

The Chinese vocational education centres, as well as educational parks, would be set up in Pakistan in future, she added.

She said her organization intends to donate some training equipment and looking forward to a positive response from Pakistani institutions which are interested to receive it.

About the cooperation in the past, she said her organization has signed a MoU with Khyber Pakhtoonkhaw (KP) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) governments to set up cultural communication centres under the CPEC framework.

These centres will serve as the main forum in the field of Sino-Pak education and cultural communication, she added.

A billionaire known as '#China's Elon Musk' is suspected of spying while he was a Duke student (in #America) and stealing a professor's invisibility #technology https://read.bi/2LiA7vK via @businessinsider

Liu Ruopeng — known as China's Elon Musk — studied at Duke University from 2006 to 2009 under David Smith, one of the world's leading experts on metamaterials.Smith has accused Liu of taking his research and replicating it in China for his own gain.Some observers, including a former assistant director of counterintelligence at the FBI, believe that Liu was sent to Smith's lab by the Chinese government.A Chinese billionaire who studied at Duke University allegedly stole a professor's ideas behind special invisibility technology — and then developed his own prototype back in China.

Liu Ruopeng, known as China's Elon Musk, is just 35 years old and is believed to be worth $2.7 billion, according to the "Today" show.

But before he created his money-making "Future Studio" in China, Liu studied at Duke University from 2006 to 2009 under David Smith, one of the world's experts on metamaterials, or "some weird material that doesn't exist in nature," as the professor describes it.

Some observers, including a former assistant director of counterintelligence at the FBI, believe that Liu was sent to Smith's lab by the Chinese government to steal intellectual property.

Smith had been working on a prototype for an invisibility cloak, and the US military had poured millions into his research.

The invisibility cloak doesn't necessarily make a person disappear, but it makes objects invisible to microwave signals.

At one point while at Duke, Liu convinced Smith to allow him to bring his old colleagues into the lab to work on projects for the professor.

When Smith was out of the lab, the Chinese researchers took photos of the lab and its contents, and also took measurements of Smith's equipment.

Much to Smith's surprise, an exact replica of his invisibility cloak prototype was built in Liu's former lab when the Chinese researchers returned home.

"It sounds like theft," Smith said. "If we were a company you might think so."

We meet Tufail at restaurant De Restauratie at the Eindhoven train station. He lives in Helmond and takes the train to Eindhoven daily and on the day of the interview, he has to attend a lecture at the Technical University of Eindhoven. “Next to my job, I’m also studying Artificial Intelligence & Innovation Management at the university because I need more information about it for my current project at MasterShip.” Tufail’s curiosity in all kinds of subjects prevails in the stories he tells about his journey of the last couple of years. “I like to be challenged and always want to try new things.”

-------------

Tufail was raised in a small Pakistani village called Dajal: a small union council of one of the most underdeveloped districts in Pakistan. His older brothers studied elsewhere in Pakistan and his parents hoped Tufail would stay home with them. “But that didn’t happen. When I was 17 years old I wanted to move to China to enroll in a program in Aerospace Engineering at Northwestern Polytechnical University. My parents and grandfather were against it. They were afraid I wouldn’t return home any more. Once you know how to fly, you don’t go back in the cage again. In the end, they let me leave to after they understood I really wanted to study there. I had never spent a night without my parents and was kind of lazy because as the youngest I didn’t have to do a lot at home. So that was an excellent base to live on my own in a different country,” Tufail says with a grin.

--------------

Those first months I had a hard time connecting to my new surroundings. The turning point was a family homestay in JiuJiang JiangXi. I was welcomed in a Chinese family where I learned more about the culture and learned to speak Chinese. I stayed with them for 40 days. I also got lots of love from the family and they treated me as their own son. Today, I’m still in contact with them.”

-----------“I graduated this year in February and I tried to find a job. I got a lot of rejections due to having no work experience in the industry. I went back to Pakistan because when you get rejected all the time, it’s better to be with your family. I kept applying for jobs. I found a wonderful job opening at MasterShip, but they were looking for someone with 5 to 10 years of work experience. I wasn’t on that level yet but I got in contact with them. They liked my resume and we had a Skype conversation. Later they told me there wasn’t a position for me yet, but they would like to stay in touch for some future openings. Later I went to Dubai for a job interview, which went well, and when I was waiting on the airport to go home, I got an email from the CEO of MasterShip: he wanted me to lead an artificial intelligence project, a very big challenge for me and the company. Everything about it was new to me and again a new challenge even in the shipbuilding industry. When I came home, my family asked how Dubai was. ‘Good, but I’m going to Europe again’ was my answer. And that’s how I ended up in Eindhoven.”

After the all the arrangements were made, Tufail moved to Eindhoven in October 2018. “I recently moved to Helmond, but eventually I would like to live in Eindhoven again. I’m still settling in at my apartment. I also want to get to know Eindhoven better and also have more of a social life. I have to manage my time well so I can go to events of the Hub for expats or something. I also want to learn Dutch so I can make contact more easily and I also think it shows respect for the country where you live when you speak the language. Eindhoven is the place I once dreamed about but didn’t know yet. I’m really happy here.”

Social sector will get special attention in the second phase of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), said Acting Ambassador of China Zhao Lijian.

The second phase begins with the start of new year, 2019, he said while talking here in FM-98’s program “Hum Qadam”. The initial phase of the CPEC has focused on infrastructure and energy projects in Pakistan which witnessed significant growth.

During the next 5 years, small projects will be the focus of attention under the CPEC, which include renovation of schools, innovation in hospital system, poverty reduction, model villages and supply of clean water for the public.

In addition to this, small scale power generation projects will be built in remote areas, Zhao liJian said adding in the education sector more than 22,000 Pakistani students are studying in China, while more Pakistani students will be sent their for higher education.

He said that more Pakistanis would be trained in China and Pakistan to overcome the problem of manpower for Chinese companies working on various projects in Pakistan. The Acting Ambassador said, the construction of Karakoram Highway from Hawelian to Thakot and Motorway M-5 from Multan to Sukkur will be completed soon.

Furthermore, he said that 7 key projects of energy have been completed in Pakistan including solar, wind and coal-generated projects, due to which significant reduction in energy problems has been seen, while work on more projects is going on speedily.

Referring to the negative reports about CPEC in local and western media, the Ambassador said, CPEC is being built with national consensus. He said that despite controversy in political matters between the political parties, complete consensus about CPEC and Pak-China relations is there inarguably.

He contended, public awareness is needed in response to negative reports published in this regard. Zhao LiJian further said that the people should be aware of the basic objectives of negative propagators, because their negative reports generally give the impression that the CPEC is a burden on Pakistan's economy on account of interest rates. All such reports are baseless without having any ground reality, he categorically stated.

#SaudiArabia offers 583 fully funded #scholarships for #Pakistani #students at 23 top #universities including King Abdul Aziz University, King Saud University, King Faisal University, King Khalid University, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. http://www.arabnews.com/node/1430591#.XDN1hqW1s1M.twitter

Saudi Arabia has announced 583 fully funded scholarships for Pakistani students at 23 leading universities in the Kingdom.In a joint announcement, Saudi and Pakistani officials said that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan will process applications and award 400 scholarships to students studying for bachelor’s degrees, 100 for master’s degrees and 83 for Ph.D. students hoping to study at Saudi universities.The scholarships will cover all disciplines, except for health and medicine.Planning for the scholarships was handled by Nawaf bin Said Al-Malki, the Saudi ambassador to Pakistan, and Ali Mohammed Hawsawi, the Kingdom’s cultural attache in Islamabad.Hawsawi said Saudi Arabia has been awarding limited scholarships to Pakistani students for several years, but would now offer a much larger number.“Pakistani students can gain admission at all Saudi universities in any subject of their choice, unlike in the past,” Hawsawi said. “We are brother countries and we hope this opportunity will benefit both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.”

Hawsawi and Al-Malki discussed the selection procedure of students with Pakistan’s Education Ministry. In the past, Pakistani students had to apply directly to Saudi universities for scholarships or make inquiries through the Ministry of Education. Now only the HEC will process scholarship applications.“We hope when Pakistani students return after the completion of their studies in Saudi universities, they will be able to contribute positively in their respective fields,” Hawsawi said.The HEC is advertising the scholarships on Pakistan national media with Jan. 31 as an application deadline.“This is a welcome addition to the HEC’s foreign scholarships program and we hope this collaboration with Saudi Arabia will continue in the years to come,” Ayesha Ikram, HEC’s media director, said.She said all scholars would be selected “purely on merit” through a system devised by the commission. A total of 250 students would be selected for scholarships and the remainder would be picked next year.The Kingdom will provide health care for students and their families as well as accommodation, food, return air tickets and special allowances, such as two months’ stipend on arrival in Saudi Arabia and three months’ graduation allowance for shipping books.Tertiary institutes where Pakistani students can apply include King Abdul Aziz University, King Saud University, King Faisal University, King Khalid University, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, and Princess Nourah bint Abdul Rahman University.“I am searching for my relevant discipline at Saudi universities and will apply for the scholarship in a couple of days,” said Azka Noreen, who plans to pursue a doctorate in biochemistry.“This will help me to study at a top university in Saudi Arabia and also explore many historic places in the Kingdom.”

“Over 22,000 Pakistani students, making them the third largest group of overseas students in China, are currently studying in different fields, including studies of China’s history and culture, medicine, information technology, environmental science, Chinese language teaching and international economic and trade,” according to official sources here on Thursday.

At least 7,000 Pakistani students were studying on scholarships in China in last year.A senior Chinese official commented that these students have become the pride of their family and for the country and they feel like home in China because the Chinese government and society both are ready to welcome and facilitate them during their stay for studies in China.

China has become the most popular destination for overseas studies in Pakistan as the number of Pakistani students has risen from 5,000 to existing 22,000 during the last five years.

The Chinese government is providing more scholarships to Pakistani students than the students of other Asian countries.

Pakistani students belonging to almost all parts of the country are taking advantage of scholarships offered by the Chinese government under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), according to some educationists.

For a Pakistani student who is studying at Tsinghua University in Beijing, the all-weather friendship between Pakistan and China encourages our students to come and study in China.

“Pakistan and China are now strategic partners and closest friends and China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is flagship project of President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative,” he added.

Pakistani students are not just coming for the affordable education and job prospects but also for the general experience and quality of life possible in China’s big cities.

22,000 Pakistanis now studying in China

According to data released by the Chinese Ministry of Education, around 489,200 students from 204 countries and regions studied in 935 higher institutions across China last year.

The top five source countries were Pakistan, South Korea, Thailand, the United States and India.

The number of students studying liberal arts subjects remained the highest, accounting for 48.45 per cent of the total.

The number of those studying engineering, management, science, art and agriculture increased significantly, with a year-on-year growth of over 20 per cent.

Moreover, 58,600 Chinese government scholarship students from 180 countries including Pakistan studied in the country in 2017, accounting for 11.97 per cent.

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The Lahore studio will be led by Ammar Zaeem, cofounder of Pakistan’s mobile game studio Caramel Tech which already has a team of 50 engineers.
The move is a big investment into Pakistan as a tech hub, and it shows how the game business is expanding around the globe.

Cloudcade:

Founded by Di Huang in 2013, Cloudcade is known for its popular multiplayer game "Shop Heroes" that pits players against each other in a competition to create the best shop they can. If a player can make a better store and perform more tasks than his or her rivals, he or she wins.

The game is available on the Apple iOS App Store, Google Play, Samsung Galaxy Store, Amazon, Kongregate, and Facebook. It is now also supported on the Apple Watch.

43.5% of Indians, the highest percentage in the world, say they do not want to have a neighbor of a different race, according to a Washington Post report based on World's Values Survey.

About Pakistan, the report says that "although the country has a number of factors that coincide with racial intolerance – sectarian violence, its location in the least-tolerant region of the world, low economic and human development indices – only 6.5 percent of Pakistanis objected to a neighbor of a different race. This would appear to suggest Pakistanis are more racially tolerant than even the Germans or the Dutch".

Housing Discrimination:

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Pakistan's human development ranking plunged to 150 this year, down from 149 last year. It is worse than Bangladesh at 136, India at 130 and Nepal at 149. The decade of democracy under Pakistan People's Party and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) has produced the slowest annual growth rate in the last 30 years. The fastest growth in Pakistan human development was seen in 2000-2010, a decade dominated by President Musharraf's rule, according to the latest Human Development Report 2018.

Human Development in Pakistan:

UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI) represents human progress in one indicator that combines information on people’s health, education and income.

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I am the Founder and President of PakAlumni Worldwide, a global social network for Pakistanis, South Asians and their friends. I also served as Chairman of the NEDians Convention 2007. In addition to being a South Asia watcher, an investor, business consultant and avid follower of the world financial markets, I have more than 25 years experience in the hi-tech industry. I have been on the faculties of Rutgers University and NED Engineering University and cofounded two high-tech startups, Cautella, Inc. and DynArray Corp and managed multi-million dollar P&Ls. I am a pioneer of the PC and mobile businesses and I have held senior management positions in hardware and software development of Intel’s microprocessor product line from 8086 to Pentium processors. My experience includes senior roles in marketing, engineering and business management. I was recognized as “Person of the Year” by PC Magazine for my contribution to 80386 program. I have an MS degree in Electrical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
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